Some People Should Never be Leaders

It is an unfortunate truth that there are too many people who get promoted to positions of leadership when they have no business being there.  Leadership is effected through competence, vision, and focus.  Within all that is the ability to manage expectations, to raise people, and to be concerned for all stakeholders.  A great leader represents a collective, not the individual. 

In our current era, there is a lot of talk about consultative leadership, servant leadership, and the committee.  It creates conditions where people are promoted to positions of leadership because they appear to be leaders, not because they are capable.  Since most people are influenced by the flamboyant and the loud, they imagine that the qualities they are looking for is attitude, confidence, and charisma.  What we have are talkers, not doers.  Leadership assessments themselves promote this bias, and this problem perpetuates itself through flawed mentorship.  When the leader is unfit, every decision is a wrong decision. 

The most dangerous of these bad leaders, and the ones who are dedicated enough to make it to the top, is the leader who is only concerned with his self-interest.  Because it is in his self-interest to succeed in the here and now, it sometimes seems that he is good for the organisation.  One of the things such leaders do is look out for potential rivals.  They will strip organisations of talent because talent is a threat to their power.  They promote sycophants, which ensures a cycle of mediocrity which will drag the organisation down long after they are gone. 

Sir David Frederick Attenborough  said, “No one will protect what they do not care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.”  These leaders have never experienced the strength of the collective.  They are the death of organisations in the long term, while possibly delivering growth in the short term.  Short term growth is commensurate with their remuneration.  Long term growth is not their problem. 

Another characteristic of a bad leader is narcissism.  Narcissistic leaders promote a toxic environment, since they have no empathy.  This results in high personnel turnover, and loss of institutional knowledge.  The best and brightest in an organisation have options, and they will be the first to leave.  A worst case scenario is that toxic behaviour actually opens the organisation to legal action.  A narcissist does not share the limelight, and will belittle others.  Gibran Khalil Gibran said, “To belittle, you have to be little.”  Big organisations, with big goals, cannot be lead by little men of little ability. 

Some terrible leaders are competent in every other area, except that they do not recognise the value of people.  Employees and volunteers are stakeholders.  They are neither an expense, nor are they numbers on a list.  There is a reason why it is called “human resource”, because good, trained, experienced people are a resource, an asset.  Oliver Napoleon Hill said, “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.”  When our success is the success of the people around us, they become stakeholders in our growth, and we in theirs. 

One of the worst forms of leadership is the perennial micro-manager.  Because there is no delegation, all decisions are stuck with this person.  The organisation is held hostage to his every indecision.  Marcus Tullius Cicero said, “More is lost in indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity.  It will steal you blind.” 

Micro-managers do not trust their people, or the system.  Because there is this trust deficit, information is at a premium, and the management style is autocratic.  There is no room for discussion, and no place for independent input.  This creates a culture of ossification, where creativity is limited, and innovation is anathema.  Stephen Richards Covey succinctly said, “Failing organisations are usually over-managed and under led.”  When the focus is only on the self, the eye is not on the horizon, and such organisations tend to lurch from crisis to crisis, all the while falling further behind the curve. 

A good leader understands that he is only a facilitator of the success of the collective.  A great leader understands that he leads by not leading, meaning that he creates the system, nurtures leadership at every level, and allows them the space to grow.  Leaders are only meant to step in when the team needs vision, and then clarification is required at specific junctures.  They are only visible when there is an overt need, such as a crisis. 

Stephen Richards Covey said, “Effective leaders are not problem-minded; they are opportunity minded.  They feed opportunities and starve problems.”